This invention relates to protective body armor in general; and, more particularly, to a ballistic panel carrier vest for inconspicuous wear over conventional attire, such as over a standard uniform shirt, as well as a method of making the same.
Body armor wear of the type to which the present invention relates is shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,973,275; 4,266,297; 4,466,135; and 4,485,491. Such garments, commonly referred to as "bullet proof vests," take the form of carriers for the containment and positioning of ballistic panels to protect the torso of the wearer from the impact of projectiles.
A well-known version of such a vest is shown by the armored garment of U.S. Pat. No. 3,973,275 to Blauer. The Blauer Vest is a lightweight flexible garment intended to be unobtrusively worn under ordinary clothing by military personnel, civilian law enforcement authorities, and the like, to protect against sudden, unexpected handgun attack. The vest comprises a plurality of panels of KEVLAR or similar soft mid flexible ballistic fabric material, enclosed within a durable outer covering and joined together to completely encircle the wearer's torso so as to provide protection against attack from any direction.
The back of the vest comprises a panel that extends down from the shoulders to the waist and forwardly partway around both sides. The back panel is yoked at the shoulders to accommodate the neck. The front of the vest has two panels that extend down from the shoulders over left and right lateral portions of the chest and ribs to the waist and rearwardly partway around the respective sides. The panels are joined together in encircling positions about the torso by strips of VELCRO or the like hook and pile fastening material. The front panels in Blauer overlap to provide added protection in the central region of the chest to give added protection to vital organs, such as the heart, against close frontal attack. Other vests of the type to which the invention relates provide the same added protection by the use of a front subsidiary pocket into which an armor plate, sometimes referred to as a "trauma" plate, is placed.
The Blauer type vest resembles the flak or fragmentation jacket of ballistic textile material known for military use to be worn over a standard military uniform shirt. A desirable objective of body armor vests for use in civilian law enforcement activities, however, is that they be inconspicuous. If the vest is not concealed from view, an attacker will aim at the head and exposed parts of the body rather than the torso, thereby defeating the effectiveness of the protective function of the garment. For this reason, vests like the Blauer vest are normally worn underneath a standard law enforcement uniform shirt or concealed by means of a jacket or other outer garment. This makes them uncomfortable for full time, routine duty wear in hot weather and also interferes with the ease and rapidity with which the vest may be donned and doffed as necessary. The vests may also snag or bind on the outer clothing, thereby inhibiting free body movement by the wearer.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,266,297 to Atkins and 4,485,491 to Rasmussen are illustrative of attempts to improve on wearer comfort and mobility by providing a protective garment that closely resembles a standard law enforcement uniform shirt, so that it may be worn in place of the standard shirt, thereby entirely eliminating the need for a separate vest. The shirt-like garment is formed with internal front and rear pockets adapted to receive front and rear ballistic panels. The garment is donned as with any conventional uniform shirt by placing arms in the sleeves and closing a vertically extending buttoned or zippered placket which runs centrally, vertically down the front of the shirt and may be worn with or without the panels installed, as desired. However, while the single garment arrangement of Atkins and Rasmussen may offer some advantages to the wearer over the conventional under the shirt vest arrangement, the addition to or removal from the garment of the panels is cumbersome and will usually require that the shirt be taken off completely. For a law enforcement officer in a hot climate who would normally want to travel in a police cruiser with the back panel of such garment removed for driving comfort, the shirt removal procedure would be a great inconvenience. As a consequence, the panels would either be left in when not needed, to the detriment of the driving comfort and mobility of the officer, or would be left out when needed, to the detriment of the officer's safety.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,466,135 to Coppage, Jr., discloses a body armor vest in the form of a separate panel carrier garment, whose front is made to resemble the front bib portion of a standard dress shirt, so that when it is worn over the dress shirt with the collar and necktie of the underlying shirt protruding over the protective vest, the vest will blend with the shirt to look like part of it. To simulate the bib portion of the shirt, the front of the vest is provided with buttons and a pocket. The multipiece, multiple layer construction of Coppage, Jr., with releasable connections at the shoulders and multiple hook and pile connections does not have the simple shirt-like strength and simplicity of the one-piece Atkins arrangement. Moreover, unlike the Atkins arrangement, the Coppage, Jr. vest is likely to conceal its body armor nature only when worn under a jacket or other outer covering that conceals the shoulder and side connections. And, as with Atkins, the tail on the vest may snag to shift the panel positions when the wearer turns.